Intentions to Marry, 1867

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840379, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 203

District of New Plymouth Quarter ending Oct - Dec

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
392	October 8	John Berkeley Harriet Autridge	John Berkeley Harriet Autridge 💍 1867/4184	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Daughter of Charles Autridge	27 18	Devon Rd Omata	2 yrs 18 yrs	House of John Berkeley	492	Charles Autridge, Father	Oct 8	Rev: John Whiteley
393	October 10	Francis Ronald Laura Adela Tookey	Francis Ronalds Laura Adela Fosbery 💍 1867/4303	Bachelor Spinster	Accountant Daughter of	37 20	Devonport Gill Street	14 yrs 6 Mos	Church of St Mary	462	Eleanor Eyton, formerly Tookey, eldest sister	Oct 11	Rev John Venble Archdeacon Govett
394	October 19	William Pearson Matilda Elkin	William Pearson Matilda Elkin 💍 1867/5728	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Daughter of Elkin	24 22	Oakura Oakura	2 1/2 yrs 3 yrs	House Village	468		Nov 2nd	Rev John Whiteley
395	November 18	Samuel Knuckey Ellen Cock	Samuel Knuckey Ellen Cock 💍 1867/5767	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer Daughter of Richard Cock	24 17	Huirangi Currie Street	2 4/12 yrs 17 yrs	House of Henry Bailey	481	Richard Cock, father	Nov 19	Rev Robert Ward
396	November 21	James Conway Mary Sweeney	James Conway Mary Sweeny 💍 1867/5749	Bachelor Widow of Thomas Brooks	Labourer	31 38	Courtenay St Courtenay St	3 yrs 5 yrs	Catholic Chapel Devon St	475		Nov 21	Rev. S. B. Rolland
397	Decemb 7	Arthur Cecil Manners Ada Carrington	Arthur Cecil Manners Ada Carrington 💍 1867/5716	Bachelor Spinster	Lieut R.N. Daughter of F.A. Carrington	26 21	New Plymouth New Plymouth	4 weeks 10 yrs	Church of St Mary	463		Dec 7	Ven: Arch Govett

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

What is an Intention to Marry?

The 1854 Marriage Act required Pakeha settlers (and later Maori) to register their intention to marry from 1855. The resulting Notices of intention to marry were sent by the district registrars to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages and bound into large volumes, each containing a year of notices. These registers were eventually deposited with Archives New Zealand.

What information does an ItM record?

A typical Intention to Marry notice records:

the bride and groom's full names
occupation of the groom (and sometimes the bride)
their ages
district where the marriage would take place
how long they had resided in the district
Where the marriage would take place (eg, a specific church)
Who would officiate the marriage (eg, a minister)
The date of the notice and also a date when the certificate was issued. Marriages had to take place within 3 months, and usually occurred within a week or so of the certificate date.
If one of the parties was under 21, a parent who consented to their marriage was usually specified

These details can provide clues for genealogical and historical research. Knowing the date and district makes it easier to look for wedding notices in Papers Past, and the amount of time that the parties had resided in a district can offer clues to whether a person was born in NZ, or when they immigrated.

However, finding individual records in the Intentions to Marry registers was typically a slow and manual process, usually requiring an in-person visit to Archives NZ's Wellington office (during limited opening hours) and using a handwritten card catalogue index to look up individual names.

Eight years of the registers had been digitised by Archives NZ prior to 2024, but even these digital versions required the use of a manual index and usually examining several pages to locate specific records.

What is the Intentions to Marry Project?

This project aims to transcribe the New Zealand Intentions to Marry registers (from 1855 to 1925) with the assistance of new technology (AI), making the records freely available and easily searchable.

The ITM records have also been cross-referenced with the registered marriages at DIA Births, Deaths and Marriages, where possible (a small fraction of the recorded intentions to marry did not become a registered marriage).

Currently we have almost all records between 1855 and 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

The project is led by Luke Howison, a web developer who made the free genealogical research search tool NZ Ancestor Search Helper and Archway-style Collections Search. There are also some wonderful volunteers assisting with digitising the registers.

Can I volunteer to help?

Yes, you can! You can sign up to correct errors in the transcribed records and match ITMs with registered marriages.

I am also looking for Wellington-based volunteers to help me digitise more years of the registers. I can provide lighting equipment and a 'clicker' (to trigger your phone's camera).

How is the transcription done?

There are several steps to digitising and transcribing the records:

Digitising the registers (taking clean, straight, high-quality photos)
Processing the digitised pages by straightening, cropping and sharpening the images
Transcribing each page with a combination of AI tools
Matching each ITM with a registered marriage when possible
Human verification of the transcribed information

The main LLM (AI) used are the Google Gemini Pro and Flash models, which have excellent 'Vision' capabilities, and a generous free tier.

Archives NZ has released the register years they have digitised (1865-69, 1872, 1874 and 1880) under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

The Intention to Marry registers (up to 1925) are more than 100 years old, so their Crown Copyright has expired, putting them in the public domain. This also applies to any 'mechanical reproductions' (eg, pictures or photocopies) of their content without substantial alteration.

The transcribed records on this website are released under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license, which allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes, while giving credit to the creator (NZ Intentions to Marry Project).